I was a bit excited today reading about Amazon's new tablet, the Fire. It got me wondering if I should get Amazon Prime, and that $200 dollar tablet. Very tempting! I'd consider getting rid of Netflix since it might be a better deal given that Prime customers get free streaming. Then a friend mentioned how cool the Silk web browser is. That's the web browser shipping with Amazon's Fire tablet. Hmm, with that browser, Amazon gets ALL of your web traffic in order to "optimize" it for you. What? I browse just fine on my android phone, why would they need to "optimize" browsing on a tablet? That bothers me. It seems like a thin veneer of helpfulness over a large steaming pile of not-anonymous "data collection" This kind of suspicious behavior reminded me that when I removed the amazon app store from my android phone, all of the apps I'd downloaded from the Amazon app store stopped working. How did those apps know? They couldn't all be written to require the app store could they? It's either that or Amazon is putting some hooks in my phone. Either way Amazon's app knows what I'm using, and when, then makes a call home.
I'm pretty well convinced that Amazon has passed the typical amoral corporate line and stepped in to evil territory. Why is the news only chasing after Apple when it blunders, but allowing Amazon to make these kinds of moves?
UPDATE Tue Nov 22 13:06:47 PST 2011: ( To be fair I must mention that since I wrote this post, Amazon has claimed that it anonymizes browsing data from their silk browser. ) Cory Doctor points out more data regarding the losses of freedom Amazon is propagating. Besides taking books back, as Cory points out, they can also disable apps you "own" on your Android phone. In the future they appear to want, you no longer really own the apps and books that you purchase.